A breadfruit tree can shade your garden and feed you
By Heidi Bornhorst
Q. What's so great about 'ulu, or breadfruit? My wife thinks we should grow it as some sort of symbol of abundance. I think it is messy and stains the sidewalk.
— 'ululess, so far, in Kailua
We have an 'ulu institute in Hawai'i where you can learn more about this beautiful, useful and significant tree.
Advertiser library photo • November 1999
Do you like to eat 'ulu? Do you think it is a most beautiful and significant tree? Wouldn't it be nice to have an abundance of this special Polynesian food tree in our landscapes and gardens?
Breadfruit, a staple food in many Pacific island cultures, nowadays is most often eaten fried, but it also can be made into poi.
Did you know that we have the largest collection of breadfruit trees in the world, right here in Hawai'i? Did you know that besides eating 'ulu, you can also make a mosquito punk from the male flower? Or sandpaper for the finest of woodworking?
The breadfruit tree has an amazing range of uses in Pacific cultures. The trees provide building and construction materials, medicine, fabric, glue, mosquito repellent, mulch, animal feed and more.
Breadfruit is the keystone species in traditional agro-forestry systems, creating a lush overstory and canopy that shelters myriad useful plants, including yams, 'awa, noni, mai'a or bananas and some cash crops, especially black pepper and coffee.
For thousands of years, cultivated breadfruit forests have protected mountain slopes from erosion and supplied Pacific islanders with an abundance of food and useful products.
Breadfruit trees have a beneficial impact on the natural environment creating organic mulch, shade and a cooler microclimate beneath the canopy.
The trees also give shelter and food to important pollinators or seed dispersers such as honeybees, birds and flying foxes (which are rare and endangered on their native islands).
The Breadfruit Institute in Hawai'i is headed by Diane Ragone at the National Tropical Botanical Garden. It has a new Web site devoted to breadfruit, www.breadfruit.org.
This comprehensive breadfruit resource covers the uses, propagation, history, germ-plasm collection, varieties, resources and much more. There are many great color photographs at the site.
What's in bloom
Pink and white shower trees, Cassia javanica, are in massive bud all over the Islands.
Look for them on the UH-Manoa campus near Bachman Hall. There's a nice one at Kapi'olani and Date. Check it out as you wait at the long traffic lights there. This is one of the parents of our wonderful street tree of Honolulu, the rainbow shower.
Rainbow showers also are just kicking in. Some hot, dry areas have them in full bloom already, while wetter shadier sites are a bit slower to produce their flowers in various hues from bright sunshine yellow to deep guava sherbet.
Gold trees, silver trumpets and their other Tabebuia relatives are accenting our parks and streetscapes with their cheerful golden trumpet blossoms.
One of the prettiest sights is the head of gold blossoms, mirrored perfectly on the grass below with another golden crown of fallen blossoms.
Heidi Bornhorst is a sustainable-landscape consultant. Submit questions to islandlife@honoluluadvertiser.com or Island Life, The Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Letters may be published or distributed in print, electronic or other forms.
